Right Wing Religion

By Brad Reed New Civil Rights Movement (9/18/19) The number of Americans identifying as atheists is increasing — and recent social science research suggests that the Christian Right is playing a key role in making that happen. As reported by Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, new research has found that distaste for Trump-loving Christian conservatism has not just turned some Americans off from individual churches but from religion altogether. “As recently as the early 1990s, less than 10 percent of Americans lacked a formal religious affiliation, and liberals weren’t all that much likelier to be nonreligious than the public overall,” FiveThirtyEight notes….

The rise of corporate religous nationalism. By Ron Briley History News Network (3/23/16) The 2016 annual meeting for the Organization of American Historians (OAH) will feature a session focusing upon the provocative book One Nation Under God by Princeton history professor Keven M. Kruse. In One Nation Under God, Kruse argues that the idea of the United States as a Christian nation does not find its origins with the founding of the United States or the writing of the Constitution. Rather, the notion of America as specifically consecrated by God to be a beacon for liberty was the work of corporate and religious…

“Somebody’s gotta tell the freakin’ truth’.” By Brandon Ambrosino Politico (9/9/19) At Liberty University, all anyone can talk about is Jerry Falwell Jr. Just not in public. “When he does stupid stuff, people will mention it to others they consider confidants and not keep it totally secret,” a trusted adviser to Falwell, the school’s president and chancellor, told me. “But they won’t rat him out.” That’s beginning to change. Over the past year, Falwell, a prominent evangelical leader and supporter of President Donald Trump, has come under increasing scrutiny. News outlets have reported on business deals by Liberty University benefiting Falwell’s friends. Trump’s former personal…

By Ed Mazza HuffPost (9/2/19) A right-wing evangelical leader on Sunday claimed mass shootings are caused by “driving God from the public square” and more specifically by teaching kids science such as evolution in schools. “We’ve taught our kids that they come about by chance through primordial slime and then we’re surprised that they treat their fellow Americans like dirt,” Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said on “Fox & Friends” one day after a gunman in Texas killed 7 and wounded 21 others. He added: “I think we have to go back to the point where we instill in…

“I have a great relationship with God.” By Lee Moran HuffPost (8/23/19) An old video in which President Donald Trump dodges questions about the Bible is going viral again in light of the president’s new claim that he is the “chosen one.” In the 2015 interview on Bloomberg Politics that Twitter user @Caring_Atheist shared online Wednesday, Trump (who’d earlier called the Bible his favorite book) appears reluctant to reveal his favorite verses. “Because to me that’s very personal,” Trump sidesteps. “You know, when I talk about the Bible it’s very personal so I don’t want to get into verses. The…

Trump-Loving Evangelicals Say They’re Grateful Trump Has Saved Them From Seeing Obama’s Rainbow White House By Brad Reed Raw Story (8/13/19) Conservative evangelical Christians in the United States are President Donald Trump’s most staunch supporters, despite the fact that the president is a serial adulterer who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault and who regularly deploys racist attacks on political opponents. A Washington Post profile of Trump-loving evangelicals shows that many of them felt they were under assault by former President Barack Obama — and one of them pointed to the Obama White House lighting up in rainbow colors in…

By Bob Bigham Raw Story (7/18/19) Multiple victims have come forward to accuse a New Jersey pastor of sexually assaulting them as part of exorcism rituals. “Three men have come forward claiming Rev. Dr. William Weaver performed sex acts on them when they came to him for private counseling at Linden Presbyterian Church,” Newsweek reportedThursday. “Weaver, 69, would allegedly tell the men that he needed to ‘suck’ out demons through their semen, citing Native American rituals and a verse from Ephesians telling Christians to ‘put on the full armor of God.’” “According to impact statements the men submitted to the Presbytery of…

“I love that they are going to write to Netflix to try and get #GoodOmens cancelled. Says it all really. This is so beautiful … Promise me you won’t tell them?” By Alison Ford The Guardian (6/20/19) More than 20,000 Christians have signed a petition calling for the cancellation of Good Omens, the television series adapted from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 fantasy novel – unfortunately addressing their petition to Netflix when the series is made by Amazon Prime. The six-part series was released last month, starring David Tennant as the demon Crowley and Michael Sheen as the angel Aziraphale, who collaborate to…

The Commoner Call (6/20/19) Given the untoward influence far right evangelical and fundamentalist churches have on the republican party and public policy, it is important to expose the multiple hypocrisies to be found among many in the fundamentalist religious/political movement. Throughout all fascist governments far too many churches and clergy play important roles in defending, promoting, excusing, minimizing and sometimes even participating in government abuse. This is a pattern that is certainly seen with the Trump administration. The Commoner Call will be running an occasional feature of recent reports of fundamentalist religious abuses. As the collection of tawdry church news…

  “I think the whole cloak of secrecy with the Catholic Church needs to be exposed.” [Harris’s presidential campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Intercept.] By Lee Fang The Intercept (6/9/19) KAMALA HARRIS, SURROUNDED by thousands of cheering supporters, kicked off her presidential campaign in Oakland earlier this year, declaring that she has always fought “on behalf of survivors of sexual assault, a fight not just against predators but a fight against silence and stigma.” Fighting on behalf of victims of sexual abuse, particularly children, has been central to Harris’s political identity for the better part of three…

  Morning Edition / NPR (3/27/19) The founder and all-female editorial board of a women’s magazine for the Vatican have quit. They say they were being delegitimized. Link to 3-Minute Video ***** The Revolt At The Vatican Shows How The Church Stubbornly Fails Women ‘We are throwing in the towel because we feel surrounded by an atmosphere of distrust and progressive delegitimisation.’ By Tina Beattie The Guardian (3/27/19) he editor of the Vatican women’s magazine, Lucetta Scaraffia, has announced that she and her all-female editorial team are to suspend its publication. In a letter to Pope Francis, which she has also made…

  When it comes to religion, the Court’s direction is clear—and Trump’s core supporters have every reason to be pleased with it. By Jeffery Toobin The New Yorker (3/6/19) Donald Trump may be imperilled by the ever-growing number of investigations into various avenues of his conduct, but his agenda continues apace at the Supreme Court. There, the President’s appointees and their allies are making quiet progress on another key goal of his political base: transforming the place of religion in American life. The changes involve both religion clauses of the First Amendment—the one that prohibits the “establishment” of a state…

We should thank Omar, the freshman lawmaker, for having the guts to raise this contentious issue. By Mehdi Hasan The Intercept (2/12/19) In 2005,  Steven Rosen, then a senior official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, sat down for dinner with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, then of the New Yorker. “You see this napkin?” Rosen asked Goldberg. “In twenty-four hours, [AIPAC] could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.” I couldn’t help but be reminded of this anecdote after Rep. Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, was slammed by Democrats and Republicans alike over her suggestion, in a pair of tweets, that U.S….

  Thom Hartmann Program (8/29/18) Michael D’Antonio, author of The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence sits down with Thom Hartmann to discuss efforts by the vice president and his allies to make Mike Pence the 46th President of the Unite States. Do you think Vice President Mike Pence is going to make a presidential run? Link to 10-Minute Video (Illustration by Seth L. Taylor, 2017)

“The same victim also testified that the ring of priests groomed their victims with gifts. The priests would mark their “favorite boys” with gold cross necklaces.” By Carol Kuruvilla The HuffPo (8/15/18) For decades, stories about clerical sexual abuse committed by Pennsylvania Catholic priests were reportedly locked away in the church’s secret archives. These old secrets exploded into the light Tuesday with the publication of a grand jury report into six of Pennsylvania’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses. The jurors’ 884-page report allowed Pennsylvania Catholics to finally grasp the extent of the abuse ― and cover-up ― in six dioceses: Allentown, Erie,…

Facing 30 sexual misconduct accusations. [Editor’s Note: This story came out last fall, but it is always good to be reminded of the rank hypocrisy of so many of those on the right who profit off moralistically judging others. — Mark L. Taylor] By Tom Embury-Dennis The Independent (11/22/17) An anti-LGBT Republican politician who was allegedly caught having sex with a man in his office is facing more than 30 accusations of sexual misconduct. Wes Goodman, a state legislator for Ohio, has already been forced to resign after a witness to the reported extramarital affair told the Ohio House Chief of Staff. Mr Goodman, whose…

  By Michael Curry The Guardian (6/23/18) The screams of children being taken from their mothers and fathers at our border, under our flag, haunts the nation. Across political and religious divides, the nation – and the world – is aghast and Americans are refusing complicity in all the ways they can. Millions of people are crying, protesting and praying in our houses of worship and in the public square. In a moment of national shame, huge swaths of people are acting in love. The families making treacherous and often dangerous journeys to seek refuge in the US are desperate….

“Last week in Dallas, the Southern Baptists held their annual convention, and they invited Mike Spence to speak. This is nothing new for evangelical groups. Both President Obama, and President George W Bush spoke before such gatherings during their terms. But, when speaking to these kinds of gatherings, politicians, and especially high level elected politicians tend to minimize any political references, focusing instead on their own faith, what it has meant to their lives, and how it guides them in their governing. “Not Mike Pence, the black hole of sycophants. Pence is well known as the worst kind of evangelical,…

***** How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory. By Michael Gerson The Atlantic (April 2018) One of the most extraordinary things about our current politics—really, one of the most extraordinary developments of recent political history—is the loyal adherence of religious conservatives to Donald Trump. The president won four-fifths of the votes of white evangelical Christians. This was a higher level of support than either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, an outspoken evangelical himself, ever received. Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models…